Monday, August 23, 2010

One of the things that always bugged us about our site was that our scope, being very broad, may have prevented readers from understanding what we are really about. In the blogosphere, you are nowhere without your niche.

To help reign things into a tighter focus we've defined five categories of Bobo interest under which all posts will fall. In alphabetical order they are: Architecture and Design, Fashion and Styling, Food and Drink, Travel, and Urban Living. We've reorganized our post labels to match those five general CATEGORIES (depicted in upper case and with a number in front- ie 04-TRAVEL) while still maintaining tags, which are shown in lower case and are much more specific in nature than a general category.

More significantly, we think, is the addition of the "PAGES" sidebar. Located at the top of the right hand column, it allows the user to go to a separate page for each category where all past posts in that category are stored in aggregate. By way of introduction, we say a few words about the appeal and the relevance of the category, then provide a link to see all the posts. We hope this will make browsing the site more pleasant and efficient.

The PAGES sidebar has also given us the opportunity to define the raison-d'être of Bobofeed. It's entitled "What the Heck is Bobo?" and if you'll indulge us, we'll share it with you now:

What the Heck is Bobo?

A brief manifesto (because who has time for long diatribes?)

If you've dug this far into our blog, you've probably read somewhere along the way that Bobo is a French term that is short-form for the expression Bourgeois- Bohème, one who is a Bourgeois Bohemian. It tends to be a somewhat derogatory term, a smirking put-down, akin to the word "yuppy". It is generally used to describe a person who at heart has middle class values and living standards, who works hard at being "in the know" and ahead of the curve, yet wishes to appear to the world as being deeply committed to egalitarianism and social consciousness and all those other good "starving artist" things. Well, just as we long ago embraced all the derogatory terms out there to describe us as homosexuals and now use them ironically on ourselves, we are hereby appropriating the term Bobo on behalf of all of us out there who feel the same as we do! We DO have middle class values and living standards, and we don't think that's a bad thing! We were well raised and we are law abiding and industrious contributors to our society. We truly value all that our life affords us, ...We DO work hard at staying ahead of the curve, in fact we are employed (quite happily-so) in industries that help set the trends. We believe that the world needs bread AND circuses. Embedded within our souls there is a deep lust for new and different ways of looking at the world, ...and we ARE deeply committed to improving the world we live in. We like beauty and feel it nurtures the human spirit, we support open thinking rather than reactivist entrenchment and action over complacency, we believe the planet needs us to stop abusing her, and we think that everybody has a right to be respected by their fellow man, to be able to put food in their bellies, and to have the opportunity to learn, and to participate in sharing the vast accumulated knowledge of our species. So we urge you to rise up, Bobos of the world! Be proud of your station! Show the cynics that it is THEY who are leading hollow lives, lives without optimism or vision! And while you're at it, go ahead, feel free to point out to them where to get the best organic free-trade shade-grown espresso, brewed by a hemp-wearing benefit-earning art student. The name Bobo Feed was carefully chosen to represent our blog, this vehicle for sharing the things that tickle our fancies and feed our spirits, as well as to evoke the constantly changing, up to the minute nature of both blogging and the Bobo lifestyle- a continuous feed of information. While we will not shy away from providing critical comment when merited, Bobofeed will endeavour to remain an instrument of positive force- we will not use this platform to indulge in negative rants. Remember that we value your thoughts and opinions- we encourage you to comment on any or all of our posts. Sorry, that ran a little longer than expected! Thanks for dropping by- we hope you enjoy your visit and that you'll find reason to return often.

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Thanks for coming along with us on this journey. We appreciate the interest you've all shown, and hope you'll choose to come back again and again.